Tracy Krueger

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Coffee Filter Collaboration

When the chance for a collaboration came about using coffee filters and tea bags, I jumped at it!

Naturally I could have used the raw color of the coffee and tea (which I may still do at a later date), I chose to color them all kinds of bright colors because I knew I wanted to use Encaustic Medium and Amazing Clear Cast Resin in my project.

I love the look of encaustic and resin together. You get a different kind of depth with each medium, one has a dreamy look and one has the look of a clear blue ocean.

Monday, July 23, 2018

The Plain Box Society

Hello friends! Today I'm going to share with you a collaboration that Tina Walker organized.

Everyone started off with a Plain brown box and we were instructed to decorate this box with StencilGirl® stencils. We could use other art materials, but the only stencils we could use were StencilGirl® (is there really any other?!?!😀). The main stencils I used were L591 Vintage Typewriter Numbers and the big one from the February 2017 Stencil Club.

After much thought of how I wanted to decorate my box, I decided I was going to create a person using the box as my "body". I came across some deli paper sheets that I had gelli printed using stencils. I began to rip up the deli paper into small strips and using matte medium I collaged the box with those strips.

Next I knew I wanted the box to have hinges instead of the normal closure, so I sorted through my stash of hinges and finally found some small ones. I cut off the lid and used brads to attach the hinge to the box.

When I was looking through all of my metal pieces I came across this piece that I believe was used in a lamp and I knew it had to be my "feet"! I heated up my hot glue gun and slathered the metal to attach it to the bottom of the box (and boy did the metal get hot!).

As for the body, I had recently purchased some of vintage clothes pins and figured that would be the perfect shape. I cut out a face image and covered it with Amazing Clear Cast Resin to give it a little dimension. After I allowed it to thoroughly cure (about 24 hours), I knew she needed a "crown" so I dug through my metal once again and found a gear. I adhered the gear then the image to the top of my clothes pin with some E6000. Once the glue dried, I drilled holes at an angle on the sides of the clothes pin so I could screw in some screws for arms.

I knew she needed some clothes and I had the perfect idea! When antique shopping I found a bag of the old school Christmas bulbs. I picked out some blue ones and if they had the actual bulb in them I removed it. I strung them together with wire and made her a little skirt!

The crown looked a little off and needed to stand out a little more, so I took one of the clear vintage Christmas bulbs and 2 of the blue bulbs I had removed from her skirt and glued them to the top of the clothes pin. Perfect addition to balance out the blue skirt. I wanted to give her some fingers so I pulled out my go-to blue resistors and wrapped a couple around each screw. She was really coming together!

I cut a hole in the top of the box, making sure it was tight so that the clothes pin wouldn't move around too much. I again used hot glue on the inside of the box to make sure it wouldn't wobble around.

Now she is done! See below for the final project and a couple of close-ups.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Through Her Eyes Challenge...

In February 2018 I drove to my Sisters' house for a visit over a long weekend. As we always do, we went shopping at many of the great antique stores in Pennsylvania. One of the great finds she found was a diary from 1920. When we got back to her house she read a few of the pages and we got a glimpse of what life was like for a wealthy female in the 1920's.

She came up with the brilliant idea of sharing photos of some of the diary pages and holding a collaboration where some creative people could create a piece of art based on these pages. I decided on creating a journal page, something that I don't do often but would like to do more of.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Bundle of Earth...

Back in July of 2017 a group of creatives participated in a 6 month collaboration of bundling together anything that struck their fancy and either burying it in the ground or hanging it. I gathered paper, fabric, metal, string, leather and wood and buried it under some mulch in my front yard. I also hung the same type of bundle.

In January 2018 I "chipped" the buried one out of the ground (it was quite cold outside). After it thawed I began to take it apart. The paper did not fair well, most of it fell apart. There were some interesting finds, some rust, some color (not sure where that came from), and some patterns from the wood veneer. The one that I hung I didn't really get much of anything. I took everything that was salvagable and decided to make a book out of it. I would say that 95% of the book is made with the pieces from the bundle. I do plan on burying another bundle sometime in the next week or two and opening it up later in the year.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Pantone Color of the Year 2018 Challenge

When I heard about this challenge, I thought, whoa... purple. Purple is just one of those colors I don't typically seek out when creating my art. When I was on the hunt for different supplies that would meet the challenge I surprisingly found quite a bit that I liked. I looked for supplies before I even had a hint of what I was going to do. At first I thought create a book.

Then I started thinking out of the box since it was the color that was really out of the box for me. I've been really enjoying sewing lately, so it hit me... sew a tote.

I gathered some fabrics that where either purple of were complimentary. The bag itself was washed canvas. I cut out a piece of muslin and played around with laying out different pieces of fabric. I stenciled on a few and stamped on one. I actually had a piece of vintage lace that had tiny purple sequins in it and knew I had to include it. I dyed another small pieces of lace with some gold spray to tone them down a little. The laces help tone down the entire piece a little.

I really like how it came out. Here are some close-up shots. I hope you enjoy!

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Dia de los Muertos

(Day of the Dead)

Artist Collaboration

Hello my crafty friends! Today I am posting about an artist collaboration involving the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos. This holiday has been celebrated for hundreds of years focusing on gatherings of family and friends to pray and remember those we have lost.

When you look images from the celebrations, it always involves tons of color, flowers and skulls. I immediately knew what I wanted to create... a shadow box of sorts.

I found a mesh bag of 3 skulls at our local grocery store and knew they would be the perfect size. They had an antique color to them, so I applied several coats of Liquitex Gesso.

I knew I needed a flat back so I used a hot soldering iron to burn the back of the skull off and finished by applying a couple more coats of gesso. Then in pencil, I sketched out my design that I wanted on the face.

Then I turned my attention to my "shadowbox" so I could let the gesso fully dry. I found a black metal box in the Halloween section of my local Michael's. I painted the box with some Finnabair Antique Silver crackle paste. When that was dry I covered it with black distress stain to take away some of the shine. I knew I wanted some color and texture in the back, so I found a piece of silver adhesive foil and ran two pieces through my embossing machine. Then I used some various alcohol inks to color up the foil.

While the alcohol inks were settling in, I came back to my skull and began to paint my design mostly using Posca Paint markers. For some of the really small parts, I used a tiny paintbrush and acrylic paint.

After her face was exactly the way I wanted it, I colored some coconut fibers with some Lindy's Starburst sprays. After I achieved the color I wanted, I hot glued it on the bottom of my box.

The design in my head involved a bunch of small glass jars filled with random artifacts and small Holiday colored bulbs. I filled them with seeds, bone shards, teeth, watch parts, porcupine quills, a feather, and small stars. I placed the skull in the box to get an idea of where I wanted the jars, then I then hot glued them to the bottom. After they were dry I hot glued my skull onto the back of the box.

I colored a bunch of small flowers and a large flower I had with Lindy's Starburst sprays, darkening them up a bit. I felt I needed some bling, so I attached a few crystals on the skull and the 3 yellow flowers around her head and hung a large crystal from the top. I wanted the large flower on the top of the box to coordinate more with the box, so I attached a metal silver flower in the middle of the large flower. On the bottom of the box, I attached some vintage glass fuses to act as a stand.

Amazing Casting Products

About Me

I'm Tracy Krueger and I've always considered myself a "crafty" person. I'm new to the blogging world so Thank you for visiting my world. Even though there may be times where I don't spend tons of time creating, I try to do something every week. I don't really have a "style" but I do love anything with natural color schemes and pops of color. I love antiques and anything rusty! I'm a total introvert so creating is one way for me to open myself up.

There are many creative ladies and gentlemen that I follow and they really inspire me to always try something new and try to step out of my comfort zone. I've attended and try to attend at least one workshop each year to expand my learning and meet new creative souls.

Starting in 2016 I started participating in artist collaborations and this really got me back into the creative mode. One of my goals over the next year or so is to apply for a design team and really put myself out there.

Thank you for joining me in this journey and I hope you keep coming back.